314 SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



meet with such innumerable points and edges as, even 

 when gentle, to cause a deep murmur or sighing, and 

 when the breeze is strong, or the storm is abroad, the 

 sounds produced are like the murmuring of the ocean, or 

 the roar of billows among rocks. 1 ' 



" The loud wind through the forest wakes 

 With sound like ocean's roaring, wild and deep, 

 And in yon gloomy pines strange music makes, 

 Like symphonies unearthly heard in sleep ; 

 The sobbing waters dash their waves and weep ; 

 Where moans the blast its dreary path along, 

 The bending firs a mournful cadence keep, 

 And mountain rocks re-echo to the song, 

 As fitful raves the wind, the hills and woods among *." 



This murmuring of the winds in the Pine trees has 

 been noticed repeatedly : Lucan compares it to many 

 united voices : 



" He said ; the ready legions vow to join 

 Their chief beloved, in every bold design ; 

 All lift their well-approving heads on high, 

 And rend with peals of loud applause the sky. 

 Such is the sound when Thracian Boreas spread* 

 His weighty wing o'er Ossa's piny heads : 

 At once the noisy groves are all inclined, 

 And bending roar beneath the sweeping wind : 

 At once their rattling branches all they rear, 

 And drive the leafy clamour through the air. 



HOWE'S Lucan, book i. 



Wordsworth describes them as influenced by gentler 

 winds : 



" An idle voice the sabbath region fills 

 Of Deep that calls to Deep across the hills,, 



* Drummond's First Step to Botany, p. 123. 





